DD transgender

[lolypopp]

With no gender dysphoria?
DD 13 says she’s lesbian which DH and I are okay with. However she now claims to be a ‘trans masculine’ and doesn’t have gender dysphoria but says she feels happier as a boy. It doesn’t make sense to me. I do support trans people but isn’t dysphoria an entry level requirement?

OP asking her dd what she feels it is it be a man / woman or girl /boy is actually a very good question. It will show what their beliefs are and what is a priority.

Does her dd believe she was born in the wrong body?

Gender and sex are 2 very different things.

Unfortunately as sir Robert Winston says you can't actually change sex, physically. So what does/May her dd want physically at a later date? Breast reduction? To have operations to construct a penis? These are all valid questions.

40 years ago people could feel these things

So I suspect 20 years ago they also could

I really feel very strongly that the first conversation with a confused 13 year old should not include the sentence ‘do you want to have a penis constructed at a later date’.

I didn't say 1st conversation!

I'd rather be surprised if it came into any conversation with a teen

Focus on who they really are , on love for them, and understanding false restrictions and challenging gender assumptions

capedavenger I was talking about the OPs daughter, not about you.

She’s 13 FFS. Of course she doesn’t know who or what she is. She probably won’t for another decade.

Tolerant to double mastectomies, sterilisation & genital mutilation?
Op's daughter deserves better, as do all teens.

I would just listen, not react in any way and remind her she is a child of 13 ie far too young to be making any firm decisions or taking any action. When my daughter told me she thought was bisexual at 14, I just said that's fine by me, but you're way too young to be giving yourself any kind of label, wait and see how things turn out for you when you're older. She was happy with that response.

Two posters have suggested similar. One said badger her with questions until she fails to answer them, and other said ask her why her generation get it wrong all the time (phrasing may be off). So my post was tongue in cheek but not a million miles off what’s being suggested. Although I doubt there’s a thirteen year old on this planet who would welcome her mum asking her about future, mythical penises.

Firstly, you are posting in the wrong place, asking advice on trans issues from MN. MN posters are notoriously anti-trans

No, I have teens and DD was friends with 6 trans teens in her year group - do you really think it’s that common? What we are seeing are children drawn into these cult status groups where being trans and joining the trans movement is seen as a challenge.
These groups are allowed in schools and allowed to post their agenda all over social media targeting children to join their cause.

These children are taking up valuable resources away from genuine cases and genuine children in crisis to look cool to their friends.

We will look aback at this time and wonder who let these groups target our children.

I know of one female to male (Friends husband) and yet I know of so many teens lost and confused because they feel they ‘should’ be XYZ - a lot of these are now self harming, because they are stuck doing something they don’t want to do.

OP my DD is gay and came out at 15 (now 19). I told her I was totally supportive and love her regardless. She has mostly always dressed androgynously and at 17 she cut her hair short. It made her feel happier and more confident in herself. Around the same time we had the conversation about gender dysphoria. Despite looking outwardly quite male (and getting mistaken often as male) she insisted that she was happy being female and had no desire to transition. I would keep the lines of communication open with your DD at this stage. It sounds like she is happy to come and discuss her feelings with you which is great. I wouldn’t rush into discussions about transitioning or gender dysphoria at this stage. I would wait for her to come to you and talk.

Dysphoria is not a requirement for being transgender. Although it is often, not a side affect, but a sign normally towards having a different gender identity, dysphoria is not always an issue people struggle with.

I have a homosexual female friend.

She made some excellent points when discussing this a few months back.

She grew up when being bay was wrong. Married had children and divorced when that became ok. Started same set relationship when that became for acceptable.

She dresses in jeans/ combat shorts, polo t shirts and hoodies, trainers. She has shirt hair. Never dresses in dresses or skirts and smart to her is trousers and shirt, blazer if cold.

Like me she's very liberal but also thinks we over discuss these things nowadays which makes kids want to experiment.

She also said during our deep conversation about life that evening she is glad she's an adult in the 21st century. That as a gay woman who dresses the way she does (btw I dress equally the same but I'm also a dress person - dependent on what way the winds blowing!) she thinks as a child growing up in this current climate and being "out" she'd have had people trying to shoehorn her into some box and put a label on it.

But as she says she's just a homosexual woman who dresses how she's comfortable. She'd never considered it to be masculine or questioned her sexual assignment or gender - it's just her sexual preferences are same sex.

I agree with above posters that I'd approach it with asking her what her choices mean to her. Ask her to define what she means. She needs to know she doesn't have to label herself to define who she is. Who she is is enough without needing to box and label it.

I do worry for teens nowadays. They seem to think just being Anne, Jane, Thomas or Matt isn't enough. They have to describe themselves much more definitively .

Good points trying.

That's obviously only her experience. She just said other than being called a Tom boy growing up and the generation above trying to get her to be more feminine she never actually felt she wasn't a woman or feminine.

She just didn't fancy men!

She did what society expected of her as a woman until she felt safe to admit she fancied woman.

I left school in the 90's. My friend is a decade older than me!

It’s why I find the “trans out the gay” concept so bizarre.

The phenomenon has been widely reported. It was raised as a concern by clinicians at the Tavistock some time ago. I remember reading multiple articles about it. I have no doubt they are qualified to make the observation. Some clinicians reported parents telling them they would rather have a trans child than a gay child. It's no surprise to find that detransitioners are rarely heteosexual.

I don't have a share token for the full article but the bit you can read makes the concerns clear.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tavistock-gender-clinic-converting-gay-children-tz8cs77p3

I can appreciate you find it hard to understand but that does not mean it isn't happening.

I'm sure you will be horrified to learn that a Tavistock clinician had a strong suspicion that at least one parent wanted their child to receive puberty blockers so that the child could maintain a pre pubescent body. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions about their motivations.

It doesn’t correlate with my own experience. I can’t imagine any situation in which I’d have genuinely accepted that I was a woman in the wrong rather than a gay man.

Have you noticed there is a general theme to your posts? If someone else's experience isn't relatable to you then you doubt the veracity of it. I'd reflect on why you believe your experience must be universal and therefore offers the only valid perspective.

I'd suggest "transing the gay away" isn't relatable to you because you were not part of the 2012/2013 Tumblr cohort, that seems to be the origins of the phenomenon of social contagion. There is plenty of information about this, including first hand accounts, out there so perhaps you aren't looking hard enough but more likely you ignore or dismiss anything which doesn't confirm what you think you already know.